The Home Book of Verse Volume Iii Part 15

"SISTER, AWAKE!"

Sister, awake! close not your eyes!

The day her light discloses, And the bright morning doth arise Out of her bed of roses.

See the clear sun, the world's bright eye, In at our window peeping: Lo, how he blusheth to espy Us idle wenches sleeping!

Therefore awake! make haste, I say, And let us, without staying, All in our gowns of green so gay Into the Park a-maying!

Unknown

MAY

May! queen of blossoms, And fulfilling flowers, With what pretty music Shall we charm the hours?

Wilt thou have pipe and reed, Blown in the open mead?

Or to the lute give heed In the green bowers?

Thou hast no need of us, Or pipe or wire; Thou hast the golden bee Ripened with fire; And many thousand more Songsters, that thee adore, Filling earth's gra.s.sy floor With new desire.

Thou hast thy mighty herds, Tame and free-livers; Doubt not, thy music too In the deep rivers, And the whole plumy flight Warbling the day and night-- Up at the gates of light, See, the lark quivers!

Edward Hovell-Thurlow [1781-1829]

MAY

Come walk with me along this willowed lane, Where, like lost coinage from some miser's store, The golden dandelions more and more Glow, as the warm sun kisses them again!

For this is May! who with a daisy chain Leads on the laughing Hours; for now is o'er Long winter's trance. No longer rise and roar His forest-wrenching blasts. The hopeful swain, Along the furrow, sings behind his team; Loud pipes the redbreast--troubadour of spring, And vocal all the morning copses ring; More blue the skies in lucent lakelets gleam; And the glad earth, caressed by murmuring showers, Wakes like a bride, to deck herself with flowers!

Henry Sylvester Cornwell [1831-1886]

A SPRING LILT

Through the silver mist Of the blossom-spray Trill the orioles: list To their joyous lay!

"What in all the world, in all the world," they say, Is half so sweet, so sweet, is half so sweet as May?"

"June! June! June!"

Low croon The brown bees in the clover.

"Sweet! sweet! sweet!"

Repeat The robins, nested over.

Unknown

SUMMER LONGINGS

Ah! my heart is weary waiting, Waiting for the May,-- Waiting for the pleasant rambles Where the fragrant hawthorn-brambles, With the woodbine alternating, Scent the dewy way.

Ah! my heart is weary waiting, Waiting for the May.

Ah! my heart is sick with longing, Longing for the May,-- Longing to escape from study To the young face fair and ruddy, And the thousand charms belonging To the summer's day.

Ah! my heart is sick with longing, Longing for the May.

Ah! my heart is sore with sighing, Sighing for the May,-- Sighing for their sure returning, When the summer beams are burning, Hopes and flowers that, dead or dying, All the winter lay.

Ah! my heart is sore with sighing, Sighing for the May.

Ah! my heart is pained with throbbing, Throbbing for the May,-- Throbbing for the seaside billows, Or the water-wooing willows; Where, in laughing and in sobbing, Glide the streams away.

Ah! my heart, my heart is throbbing, Throbbing for the May.

Waiting sad, dejected, weary, Waiting for the May: Spring goes by with wasted warnings,-- Moonlit evenings, sunbright mornings,-- Summer comes, yet dark and dreary Life still ebbs away; Man is ever weary, weary, Waiting for the May!

Denis Florence MacCarthy [1817-1882]

MIDSUMMER

Around this lovely valley rise The purple hills of Paradise.

O, softly on yon banks of haze, Her rosy face the Summer lays!

Becalmed along the azure sky, The argosies of cloudland lie, Whose sh.o.r.es, with many a shining rift, Far off their pearl-white peaks uplift.

Through all the long midsummer-day The meadow-sides are sweet with hay.

I seek the coolest sheltered seat, Just where the field and forest meet,- Where grow the pine-trees tall and bland, The ancient oaks austere and grand, And fringy roots and pebbles fret The ripples of the rivulet.

I watch the mowers, as they go Through the tall gra.s.s, a white-sleeved row.

With even stroke their scythes they swing, In tune their merry whetstones ring.

Behind the nimble youngsters run, And toss the thick swaths in the sun.

The cattle graze, while, warm and still, Slopes the broad pasture, basks the hill, And bright, where summer breezes break, The green wheat crinkles like a lake.

The b.u.t.terfly and humblebee Come to the pleasant woods with me; Quickly before me runs the quail, Her chickens skulk behind the rail; High up the lone wood-pigeon sits, And the woodp.e.c.k.e.r pecks and flits.

Sweet woodland music sinks and swells, The brooklet rings its tinkling bells, The swarming insects drone and hum, The partridge beats its throbbing drum.

The squirrel leaps among the boughs, And chatters in his leafy house.

The oriole flashes by; and, look!

Into the mirror of the brook, Where the vain bluebird trims his coat, Two tiny feathers fall and float.

As silently, as tenderly, The down of peace descends on me.